Apple Prepping iPhone 6 NFC with Microlatch Acquisition

Apple has signed a deal with Australian biosecurity start-up Microlatch to prepare the iPhone 6 / iPhone 5S for the mobile payment era with NFC capabilities, according to a subscription-based publication in Australia.

David Murray, former head of the Commonwealth Bank and a lead investor in Microlatch, reportedly told The Australian that “the company had an agreement with the notoriously secretive Apple to develop fingerprint technology for use in near-field communications applications.”

According to the newspaper, Microlatch holds patented technologies relating to fingerprint identification that meets the stringent security standards of the banking system.

The solution would not require central processing or storage, in what Mr. Murray described as a “self-registering” process.

Apple is currently rolling out the iPhone 5 internationally, but the company is probably already hard at work on the next iPhone iteration, as history has shown.

Whether it will be called iPhone 6, or iPhone 5S, Apple’s next smartphone seems poised to break through the NFC ice next year.

As far as this technology is concerned, Apple’s only roadblocks have been technology-related. The Cupertino giant needs to ensure a flawless experience with this kind of service, and when it all boils down to the required materials and chips, things tend to get a bit complicated.

One area where Apple certainly doesn’t have a problem is the iTunes ecosystem, with the hundreds of millions of credit cards on file ready to start doing payments outside the App Store realm.

Imagine shopping by simply swiping your iPhone over the counter on your way out. When it comes to this particular type of technology, it would be very interesting to see the results of a study fielded only with women consumers.

Let’s kick things off in the comments, shall we? How many of you would replace your credit card with your iPhone?